Psyke.org

Carley

Copyright, Carley

I don’t know where I came up with the idea to mutilate my own body as a way of dealing with things; but whereever it was that I did, I will thank them.

I remember the first time I ever intentionally hurt myself. I am 15 years old right now, and am currently on medication for depression, and ADHD. In the beginning of 7th grade, I began drinking. It was rather infrequent at first, but snowballed into an every other day thing. I started isolating myself from everyone and everything. I had blankets over my windows and I just sat in my chair in the corner of my room all day, almost as if I were catatonic. I was writing a lot then, to get shit out of my system. And one day, my father came up to my room while I was at school, and looked through every single thing I had ever written. Most of the stuff was about my hatred for him, and myself. There were several suicide notes that my father found amusing. He confronted me with the things he had found in my room, and threatened me — he said that if I didn’t get rid of all of that shit, and stop ‘pretending’ to be suicidal, and depressed, he’d admit me to the hospital. Well. Seeing as how I was only 13 everyone thought that I was just pretending. My father and mother made me go to a counselor. It was after the 4th visit I had with Sheryl that I first cut myself. It was with a pin that my grandmother gave me right before she passed away. I scratched my forearm with it for about 10 minutes. It wasn’t bad at all, it barely bled. But, I found it more cathartic than anything I had ever tried! Cutting myself became a somewhat ritualistic thing for me. I’d get really sad, so I’d go and cut. I have always felt quite inferior to the rest of the world, and that put me under the impression that I was lower than everyone.

The first time I was confronted about my cutting was the end of 8th grade. My best friend in the world — who I confided in with everything — noticed some big scars on my wrist, and questioned me. I told her it was my cat (I use that excuse to this day) but she didn’t believe me, of course, how could a cat make 7 straight vertical lines on my wrist? She then told her parents, who, in turn, called my parents. My mom was very saddened by it, my father on the other hand, laughed. He came to wake me up one day, looked at the inch deep cuts on my wrist and said to me with a laugh, “what’d you do? scratch yourself with a pencil?”

Then my best friend moved away from me, and from then on, I was hell. I hated my self. I’m talking about passionate, malevolent, hatred for myself, coming from the pit of my stomach. The way I saw myself was this empathetic, self-deprecating, inferior, sorry, little pisces girl.

Anyways. I know you are all getting tired of reading this if you haven’t already stopped. I am still taking my anti-depressants to this day, though my psychologist keeps on fucking with the meds and putting me on new ones, and taking me off ones and shit. I’m still seeing sheryl, and was recently diagnosed as dysthymic. I still get really suicidal sometimes, but as fucked up as it sounds, by cutting my flesh with a serated steak knife, I am able to keep myself from killing myself. It is the only catharsis I have at this point. And I feel quite rapacious, or mercenary by saying this, but not a day goes by that I don’t think about getting my fathers gun out of his closet, and shooting myself in the head, following my idol and role models footsteps, Kurt Cobain. But who knows? Maybe someday I will get the guts to finally do it, maybe I won’t. But cutting has gotten me this far.

 

Permanent location: http://www.psyke.org/personal/c/carley